


Here Be Dragons

by ms_scarlet



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 11:52:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3133463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ms_scarlet/pseuds/ms_scarlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Well, here we are.” She gestures towards the space beyond the electrified wire in front of them. “We fell from space only to find a pit full of monsters except they didn’t warn us that we’d find them in ourselves.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here Be Dragons

 

Bellamy finds Clarke sitting on the ground in the far corner of the camp, next to the fence overlooking the valley the Grounders had vacated. Her hands dangle limply between her knees as she stares blankly across the trampled fields. She’s been slipping off every night as soon as she could get away in the weeks since the night they’d-- _she’d_ \--made peace with the Grounders. 

Some nights he keeps careful watch while giving her room to think, God knows she needs the space. Her days are filled with strategy and negotiations and the constant pressure of everyone’s attention. The Arkers look at her with a wary mix of expectation and a terrible kind of awe. Her mother’s eyes follow her, at times considering and at others concerned and suffocating. Raven mostly stays out of her way but, whenever their paths cross, her gaze locks onto Clarke, bitter and accusing. 

If he has to, he will move heaven and earth to give her these brief reprieves from the chaos around her, to give her a chance to breathe away from the stares and whispers.

Some nights he sits with her and they talk quietly as night falls. She always keeps the conversations deliberately focused on practical things, plans for the campaign against Mt. Weather, the preparations Lexa’s people recommended for the coming winter, who’d been in the med tent and who was being sent out on patrol. 

They talk about anything but the source of the hurricane that has raged behind her eyes since the night she returned to camp, a knife digging deep grooves into hands crusted with drying blood. He lets her because he knows what it’s like to have something so dark inside of you that you’re afraid to even think about it for fear it will break lose and obliterate everything in its way. 

He settles on the ground next to her, not quite touching but close enough that he could feel her warmth against his arm.  After a moment she speaks, her voice husky and soft.

“You’ve seen old maps, right? Really old ones, from back when they thought the Earth was flat and if you went too far into the unknown you would fall off the edge into a pit full of monsters? _Hic sunt dracones_ , here be dragons. _”_ She sighs, a sound so despondent and _wrong_ coming from her it tears at his heart. She looks so small, her profile silhouetted against the darkening sky, her shoulders bent towards the ground under a weight he would do anything to take from her.

“Well, here we are.” She gestures towards the space beyond the electrified wire in front of them. “We fell from space only to find a pit full of monsters except they didn’t warn us that we’d find them in ourselves.”

Her voice cracks on the last word and he moves to crouch in front of her, crowding in close, his eyes searching her face.

“Clarke.” He waits patiently until she meets his eyes. “You did what you thought was right. I told you once that you didn’t have the guts to make the hard choices and I don’t think I’ve ever been more wrong in my life.” 

The sound she makes isn’t a laugh but it seemed like maybe one day it could be and it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard. 

“It was an impossible choice and you did the only thing you could do. You took Finn’s life but you gave him peace and saved him from something worse. You saved _all_ of us from something worse. Hey-”  He cups her chin as she looks away, gently forcing her to face him. If he only has this one moment for her to hear him, he needs her to see, to know, to _feel_ what he says. 

He remembers how they first started, Clarke standing tall before him with fire in her eyes, staring him down and daring him to be better. He remembers the first time he saw her with a knife and faced with another hard choice, her hair a blazing corona in the golden afternoon sun illuminating her grave face as he realized she had a core of solid steel and a heart that could encompass galaxies. He remembers the calm, defiant tilt of her chin as she faced the Chancellor and told him that she believed Bellamy Blake was a man worth saving. He remembers countless hours spent by her side as she faced every nightmare this planet has thrown at them without flinching or giving way.

He speaks slowly, his voice deep and forceful. He fills it with all of the surety and light and hope she’s given him, the pieces of her he carries in his soul that remind him to keep trying, to keep fighting, to keep going when he isn’t sure if he can. He gives them back to her, trying to show her in more than words who he knows her to be.

“You’re not a monster, you’re a queen.”

She stares at him for one endless, breathless moment before her face crumples and the storm breaks. She sobs, sharp, raw and animal as she collapses into him. He shifts around so he sits against the Ark, gathering her into his arms. He cradles the back of her head to his chest as her shoulders shudder and heave and feels her tears burning like liquid fire as they soak into his shirt over his heart. He wonders that a person can feel so fragile and be so strong. 

“I don’t know how to keep doing this.” Her tears make her voice thick and jagged. “I don’t know how I can keep ripping away pieces of myself before there’s nothing left. What happens when I wake up and realize I don’t know who I am anymore?”

“You’ll find me and I’ll tell you.” He holds her tighter, pressing his cheek against her hair and speaks softly into her ear 

“I _know_ you, Clarke. You fight for what you believe in even when it doesn’t make sense, you’ll move mountains to protect the people you care about, you never lose hope, you never give up. You’re smart and kind and stubborn and I-” 

He swallows hard, pulling back from an edge neither of them are ready to fall over. “I will _never_ let you forget who you are. You aren't in this alone. I’ve got your back. Always.”

She curls her fingers around his collar, burrowing deeper into him. He kisses her hair and tucks her head under his chin and they sit, wrapped in each other, as the last of the light fades from the sky and the stars twinkle into view.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments give me life if you're into that kind of thing.


End file.
